


She Rides With Him

by thewiggins



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Car Accidents, F/M, Free Verse, Hallucinations, Mental Instability, POV Spike (BtVS), Poetry, Post-Episode: s05e22 The Gift, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, not as grim as it sounds, ray of hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 09:16:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16829656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewiggins/pseuds/thewiggins
Summary: She's gone and Spike knows it. Yet she rides with him tonight.A narrative poem in freeverse describing a scene shortly after "The Gift".





	She Rides With Him

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to thenewbuzwuzz for betaing at short notice and for inspiring me to write fandom poetry in the first place!
> 
> Written for the Fall 2018 round of Seasonal Spuffy. A very dark take on the Road Trip theme.
> 
> This poem takes place shortly after "The Gift" and Spike's not in a good place. It's dark, but not entirely without hope.
> 
> Conscrit always welcome!

She rides with him as he rushes down the nighttime highway,

the black beast of his car turned tiny by the great open desert,

a speck,

a dark seed carried through the vastness,

nothing more.

He hears the whisper of a voice in the muted wind and turns,

half-expecting to see her there

on the other side of the broad bench seat.

But she’s too faint,

stretched too thin,

torn to mist by the hungry air.

Yet he swears she is with him as he plants his foot against the pedal.

He needs to see her more clearly, so he presses his eyes shut.

And for a moment he’s there, with her, instants before the air consumes her.

He taps her on the shoulder, shaking his head, this time he’ll take the di–-

But his thoughts are shattered,

Smashed and torn like everything else.

All around him is the rending of metal, of glass,

of years of bloodsoaked memories.

The car opens like a flower

and everything

flies apart

into

fragments

sharp painfulbright

gleaming.

And he is broken

free

flying

twisting up with her and the wind

wrapped in arms made of air

and love

and other insubstantial things.

But

weightlessness

is too lovely

to live

for long.

And he is heavy.

So heavy

with sin

and guilt

and selfish intentions.

So he falls.

Of course he does.

He rolls and

bounces across the hard ground.

Things snap inside him.

His head smacks against a half-buried rock.

And as he lies there,

he knows he’s reached his inevitable fate.

Left with useless limbs

and a mouthful of dirt,

curst for trying to enter Eden.

He sobs a tiny puddle into the desert.

Why is he still here?

Why does he have to

keep

being

here?

But...

maybe he doesn’t.

Given a few hours, the Sun

(mercifully merciless queen of day)

will come wipe the worry from his brow,

burn the ache from his bones,

purify them with ritual flame.

Yes.

Sweet, sweet sunshine.

He lets his head collapse onto the sand.

A breeze forms cool fingers,

trailing along his bloodied cheek.

He closes his eyes,

wanting to be soothed.

But the cruel wind

(demanding bitch)

will not soothe for long.

It buffets and grabs at him,

yanking at his coat by the lapels.

And out of the wind, her voice forms,

a little different every time,

scornful,

pitying,

resigned,

disgusted,

forgiving

…loving?

Now he knows he’s hearing things.

The tone shifts but the words never do.

He hears them

again,

and again…

_You promised._

_I can’t_ , he replies, pleading.

_Can’t you see, love?_

_I can’t. Can’t help anyone._

_Can’t save anyone._

_Not you,_

_not Dawn,_

_and as for myself…_

_we both know there’s nothing left to save._

But the voice will not go silent.

It continues

till the

words

overlap

lost in a cacophonous roar

loud as the air rushing over his ear,

angry as the wind slapping sand into his face.

He doesn’t know what she expects him to do.

How can he stand,

let alone make the trip

back to town?

But she gives him

no peace,

refuses to let him rest.

And he never could bear

her disappointment.

He pushes

his body

(wretched old thing)

upwards with geological slowness.

Bones grate against each other

like tectonic plates.

He quakes and shivers

as he snaps them back into place.

He pulls

himself

into something

that might look a little

like his old shape

to the distant and calloused eye.

The car sits, a hundred feet away,

folded around a light pole.

And beyond it the road cuts

an agonizing line through the desert.

Back to the one person he knows hurts as much as he does.

Back to his promise.

As he travels that brutal line,

he allows himself to imagine

that Buffy walks beside him.

The wind has softened,

grown mostly silent.

But as the orange glow

of the town they once shared

blooms out of the desert air,

he thinks he hears

one last faint whisper.

Thinks he feels

the dandelion soft

brush of lips on his cheek.

His lips curve into the grim outline of a smile

as he trudges wearily back toward town.


End file.
